


The Consecutive Chronicle of The Curious Case of the Klutz

by OptimisticEmotion



Series: Curious Case [3]
Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Bat Brothers, Continuation, Funny, poor Tim
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-13
Updated: 2016-11-13
Packaged: 2018-08-30 20:28:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,457
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8548084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OptimisticEmotion/pseuds/OptimisticEmotion
Summary: Trying to be the perfect one of your 'siblings' might never go as you intend. Something Tim is now learning as he fulfills his part of a now long standing Robin Tradition.





	

Blue Beetle and Impulse were sitting on the couch. Beastboy was currently a cat, curled up between them. LagoonBoy was in the seat adjacent to the couch facing the love seat that Superboy and Wondergirl were currently sharing as they were quietly going over an old case file together. Nightwing was standing next to Wondergirl, looking over their shoulders and whispering into the conversation every now and then to help give the pair advice on strategy. Aside from the whispered studying going on between the three, the room was mostly just quiet.

So when the Zeta Tube announced the arrive of Robin, quietly followed by the arrive of the Batman, everyone's heads snapped to that direction, and Nightwing and Conner shared a look of 'Again!?'.

Batman quietly lead Robin to the living room, scanned the seats before pointing to a spot on the floor, where the boy wonder obediently sat without a word. The young side kick was not in full costume unlike his mentor, but his shades still hid his ashamed eyes. His jacket and jeans were covered in bright, almost florescent, orange stains, and there were a couple of rips in each artical. Batman didn't bother saying a word before he turned around and made his way back to the tubes, followed quickly by Nightwing. The younger hero didn't catch up to his former mentor until after they were already in Gotham.

"Bats, what happened?" Nightwing asked.

Batman hung his head a bit before answering. "You'll see when we get back to the cave," He muttered.

"Alright, but how much trouble is Robin in?" Nightwing asked.

"You'll see, when we get back to the cave," Batman repeated.

'yesh,' Thought the Blue and Black hero, 'Poor Kid.'

* * *

 

Back at the mountain, Conner was watching Robin, whom everyone else elected to ignore, and was debating on asking the obvious question. But this Robin wasn't like the previous two. This one was more likely to lie and avoid the story all together instead of telling it. Which is why, Conner figured, Nightwing went to ask Bats. But his curiosity was killing him. Was it as bad as the second Robin's string of mess ups, or as out of his control as the first's? This Robin wasn't the kind of kid to be goofing around in a spinning chair and he wasn't the kind of kid who'd try bike stunts in an important area such as the cave.

"Gah! What did you do? It's killing me!" Surprisingly, it wasn't Conner who asked.

"What do you mean, Cassie?" Robin looked over to Wondergirl.

"Batman just drags you in and sits you down and leaves, and you look like you just had the scolding of a life time. What. Did. You. Do?!" Wondergirl asked again.

"Nothing. I just messed up on and experiment is all." Robin moved his knees to his chest and wrapped his arms around them.

"So you _didn't_ destroy the batcave?" Conner asked with a smirk.

"I-, of course not, why would you think I did? That would be stupid." Robin looked away from the two on the couch.

"Esé! You destroyed the Batcave! Props!" Blue cheered.

"Yeah man! That's so totally crash!" Impulse joined in.

"I. Did. Not. Destroy. The Batcave," Robin ground out between his teeth.

"Then what did you do?" Laggand asked.

Robin pulled his knees closer to himself and ignored them.

"I bet he accidentally launched a bat-missile out of the bat-jet and into the bat-whatevers and the whole place came down!" Garfield joined in.

"The 'Bat-Whatevers'?" Laggand looked over to the other green hero incredulously.

"Hey, I don't know what all 'bat-gadgets' are down there," Beastboy shrugged.

"Nah man, he probably did something more extreme like taking one of those motorcycles around the cave and running it into some explosives or something!" Bart speculated, loudly.

"Um, I didn't think of that, it could be a factor? Well, what do _you_ think happened?" Blue started talking. Everyone thought he was talking to Bart at first but then he looked up and scratched the back of his head.

"Well, I think it could have been realistic, like he flooded the whole cave," Laggand guessed.

"What about the orange stains?" Blue asked, looking to Robin who looked like he was trying to shrink himself into nothing as everyone sat around guessing around him.

"What about it?" Wondergirl asked.

"Batman had similar stains on his cape, and uh, the cuts in the fabric look fresh too." Blue sounded like he was repeating the words from someone else, either way, he got people wondering.

"You didn't get attacked by a bunch of space monkey's that spat orange and thought you were a strange alien banana, did you?" Beastboy changed his theory.

"It's not saliva, I think it's, chemical? Bro, when you said you messed up on an experiment?" Blue asked.

Robin sighed, probably realizing that if he didn't tell the story, his friends and teammates would officially make one up for him.

"Alright. Fine. I was just testing a chemical composition my science teacher mentioned at school today. I was curious, and I knew that we had the ingredients in the batcave, as well as all the necessary equipment, so it seemed like the best place to work on it, . . . "

* * *

Tim sat at the chemistry table, trying to be mindful of the other experiments around him. Bruce had a few things setting out, presumably waiting for them to be settled before continuing whatever he was previously working on. The boy found a clear spot to set up his experiment near the end of the table where a few unfinished gadgets and gizmos were waiting to be tinkered and weaponized. He went over all the safety measures, wore the proper protective gear; goggles, lab coat, gloves, chemical resistant apron - and he had made sure that he was using all the proper equipment. Tim took pride in the fact that he was always careful, but as hot as it was in the cave that day, Tim had absent mindedly shrugged off the lab coat during his experiment. When he was about to add the next ingredient, Alfred had come down to scold him for playing with dangerous chemicals with bare arms. Tim felt the shame there and then and as the old butler walked away, Tim grabbed his jacket, as it was closer than the discarded lab coat, and then added the chemical he was about to before. The funny thing about chemicals is that sometimes 'when' you add them is just as important as 'how much' you add of it, and Tim's pausing to pull on his thin summer jacket was just long enough to turn the interesting composition into something a little more deadly. The moment Tim added the 1/3 cup of the last chemical, the whole mixture turned a neon orange and started to bubble over. Tim tried to turn the burner off, but the goop that bubbled past the lip of the beaker ran down the side of the container and right into the flame before Tim had a chance. Turns out the chemical was highly flammable and the whole thing caught on fire. Tim, trained by the Batman himself, reached to his belt to pull out a fire extinguisher, but the thing was he wasn't wearing his utility belt. He was in civvies and the fire was now spreading across the table to the other experiments, as well as the mid-tinker gadgets. Tim froze up, trying to remember were the batcave extinguisher was.

"Bruce!" He called out when he couldn't remember.

Bruce turned from the computer and his work for Watchtower to see the mess Tim had gotten himself into. He grabbed the extinguisher from his own belt and rushed over to the table. He was just a little to late when the ignited chemical reached one of the gadgets and set of the thermal triggered mechanism that shot out the spring loaded shrapnel. Small bits of metal went every where and the two heroes didn't have much time to duck for cover. Luckily, the direction Tim was at was sparse of most the shrapnel and therefore while Bruce's cap and armor were scratched to high heaven, Tim only had a few cuts in his cloths and a couple of scratches to go with. The real victim of the weapon was the monitor to the batcomputor. There were a couple chunks of metal sticking out of the now shattered screen.

After the shrapnel set off, forcing Bruce to take a step back and block his unprotected face, the chemical then reached the other experiments. The beakers of the other chemicals were starting to crack from the heat and Bruce stared putting that end out first. As he went down the line Tim found the other fire extinguisher under the other end of the table and quickly fired it directly at the beaker of the out of control gloop before Bruce could stop him.

The quick change from hot to cold shattered the glass of the beaker and the orange gloop went everywhere, covering the two heroes in the quickly cooling chemical. Tim froze for a moment while Bruce finished putting out the rest of the fire.

"Go check to see if it's dangerous," was all the Dark Knight grumbled as he went to work grabbing new beakers for the old experiments, The many different colored liquids were now starting to leak and Tim guess Bruce didn't want him around more hazardous materials at the moment. Tim simply nodded and went over to the bat computers, trying to see pas the spider-webs of cracks and chunks of metal to properly test the gloop on his forearm. As it rendered, Tim tired to find something to clean the gunk off of himself with, there was some on his face too, and that was a scar he did NOT want to have to explain to his father.

"Looks safe," Tim called to Bruce as the test completed.

"Good." Bruce came up behind Tim with a wet rag. Tim suddenly realized how hard it was to look directly at Bruce.

"I,um, I'm sorry, I didn't think it would get that volatile so quickly," Tim apologized.

"just clean it up," Bruce ordered. Tim then realized that while the rag was in one hand, a bucket was in the other. He sighed, nodded, took the items, and got straight to work. Tim worked diligently on the mess for five minutes straight as Bruce got started on gathering what he needed to fix the computer. Both gave only a passing thought to cleaning up first, but had both decided they needed to give their present task priority. As Tim reached closer to the spot where he had his experimental disaster, he slipped on some of the gloop that was still on the floor and he fell into the gadgets on the table, knocking one off. It didn't even bounce with the thud it landed with before it began to roll. Tim watched as it rolled straight over to where Bruce was working. Tim figured Bruce, the Batman, would see it or sense it in someway, so he didn't say anything before righting himself and getting back to work. But the rounded gadget didn't go straight to Bruce, it went under the wheel of the machine Bruce was getting out to help lift the heavy and shattered glass out of the monitor, and when the gadget got caught in said wheel, the whole thing tilted over, and with it's off balance weight, toppled. Tim looked up, startled by the crash. Bruce also had to take a second to see what went wrong. He saw the gadget, lifted it, and looked directly at Tim. The boy's cheeks colored, giving away his guilt in the small incident.

Tim went to go help right the now damaged, and extremely expensive, machine. He forgot he had set the bucket down right next to himself, however, and toppled over it. The soapy, chemical tainted water spilled everywhere and Tim almost landed right in the middle of it, if not for Bruce throwing a batarang just in time to knock Tim back a bit, also ripping a new hole in the boy's jacket. Luckily, Tim wasn't cut and he landed on the dry and safe ground instead of the dangerous, hazardous ground. Bruce took a breath of relief as the current boy wonder righted himself again. Tim felt like he was about to cry from embarrassment as he was presented with his shades.

He knew what was happening. He heard the stories about both Dick and Jason's disasters. He remembered thinking he was better than that. But that last klutz-up was the last straw, and he was being sent to Mount Justice to be baby sat by the other kid heroes.

"I'm sorry," was all he could say as he tried to keep the tears from falling. Bruce didn't say anything but pushed the sunglasses closer to Tim for the boy to take. Tim slipped them on to hide his now red eyes and stood to head towards the exit.

Just as the two started for the batmobile, Tim had one, last, disaster.

He was caught up in thinking what went wrong and how embarrassed he was, he didn't see his own skate board in front of him. He was usually pretty good at putting it away. But this once, he had been so excited about the experiment that he didn't think about it thoroughly and hand just kicked it off to the corner. The thing must have decided it hated it's owner because it was suddenly a few feet from where Tim remembered it being, and Just as Bruce past it, Tim followed, and stepped right on the board accidentally.  
The board of course rolled, and Tim of course fell, and Bruce of course full-fledged face palmed. The board shot out from under Tim as the boy fell to the ground. The evil device then hit a trophy case that toppled and hit Jason's memorial case, shattering the glass on that side. The base of the trophy case then rolled into another one and knocked the stand from under the souvenir. The souvenir, which happened to be the head of a disarmed Amazo, rolled straight toward the weapons case, where Dick had left the case open again, and the head knocked quit a few weapons off the selves with he force that it hit it with. A grappling hook that was somewhere close to the top of the pile shot off and hit the R-cycle. The R-cycle then actually landed on Tim's skateboard that had rolled into to it at the start of the mess and broke the thing in two. One half rolled to Tim and stopped just short of a foot of the boy, the other shot up into the air before landing right on top of the Batmobile. Thankfully, the batmobile suffered no damage what so ever as it is use to handling bullets, bombs, and lunatics, but that just meant it bounced off and landed on the Wing-cycle, scratching Dick's insignia up. That half then rolled unto the batmobile and bumped gently against the giant penny.

"Oh Lord, just kill me now," Tim begged, his hands muffling his voice. Bruce just gently grabbed his shoulder and lead the boy to the batmobile and then to the zeta tube where Robin was then lead silently to Mount Justice and sat in front of his friends.

* * *

"And thus ends my tale of humiliation. Alright?" Robin concluded with his face tucked into his knees.

"Oh, common Rob!" Impulse smiled. "Think of it this way, you now have a crash new story for when we have newbies!"

"I don't want anyone to hear about this," Robin grumbled.

"Well if that's not wishful thinking," Wondergirl laughed. "Sorry Robin, everyone messes up at some point. The really funny mess ups are the ones retold again and again," she giggled.

Robin just kept his face buried in his arms and knees. Blue could tell by his thermal readings that Robin was blushing, or he had a fever, he was still getting the hang of the damn thing, but he was pretty certain that Robin was blushing.

"You have to admit, Robin, it was pretty funny," Laggand chuckled. He had to calm himself down as he was laughing so hard.

"At least you weren't goofing off when it happened," Superboy shrugged. "Your's was an honest mistake than couldn't have been helped."

"Really, sounds like it all could have been avoided if that 'Agent A' you talked about hadn't made you pause what you were doing to put on a jacket," Cassy added.

"Don't make this his fault," Robin snapped at Wondergirl. He froze when he saw the surprised look on her face. He didn't normally snap at people. "S-sorry, Cassy. Just, don't say bad things about Agent A. Okay?" He buried his head back down.

"Anyway, I wonder how Nightwing is taking this one?" Superboy wondered out loud. He had a good reason for asking as the Blue and Black here had just reemerged from the zeta tubes and marched over toward Robin. Robin flinched rather visibly when the older bat stopped less than a foot from the younger. Everyone held their breath as they remembered the part in Robin's story where he ruined the Wing-cycle's paint job.

"MY BROTHER!" Nightwing called out with a goofy grin as he fell to his knees to embrace the young Robin.

"Air! Very much need!" Robin called out.

"The tradition has been followed, you are indeed a true boy wonder!" Nightwing cried out, still grinning like mad.

"Nightwing, really, breathing is not an option. It's something I still need to be able to do to sustain life!"

Robin's pleas were ignored as Nightwing cuddled his little brother.

"You know, this should probably be considered a stranger sight than it is," Wondergirl said out loud.

"I know, you don't see much physical affection between bats all that often," Beastboy agreed.

"But they have that vibe that makes one think they do this all the time in civvis, right? I'm not the only one?" Bart added.

"Still a 'bit' strange though," Laggand said with a scrunched up face. Bats don't 'do' hugs. But Nightwings did, apparently, and it was still unsettling.

"Can we go now? Please?" Robin asked quietly.

"Sure. I'll even carry you so you don't have a klutz attack on the way to the zeta tubes," Nightwing offered.

"Get off of me!" Robin shoved Nightwing off and stood up. He dusted himself off and started for the tubes, followed closely by Nightwing. The latter turned in mid-step and winked at the group before turning back around and nearly tripped on the chair Robin had pulled in his way while he was walking backwards.

"Alright. It's on!" Nightwing called out to the other who was now running.

When both were gone through the tubes Everyone looked to Superboy.

"What?" He asked.

"Is it true that Nightwing and the other Robin did something similar once?" Wondergirl asked.

"Yeah," Conner confirmed.

"And you heard all about it, right Man?" Himé asked.

"Yes," Conner nodded.

"Will you tell us?" Garfield asked.

"Sure," Conner shrugged.

"I'll get popcorn!" Bart cried out before going off to get snacks.

"What do you think Nightwing meant by 'It's on'?" Laggan asked. Conner didn't really want to talk to this particular person directly, but they were being civil at the moment, so he took a deep breath and controlled himself before replying.

"Nightwing is notorious for starting prank wars, and the Robins that came after him tend to be the only ones able to keep up."

"You think they're going to start a prank war?" Cassy asked.

"If they do, don't try to join. It will only be a disaster." Conner shivered at the memory.

"Oh! Another story! You have to share that one!" Bart decided as he reentered the room with and arm full of snacks as well as five bags hanging off his arms full with the promised popcorn.

"Okay, well, I guess it would be best to start with when Nightwing was Robin and we had just watched a strange cartoon where the main characters tried to teach a toaster how to pull a prank. That's when we learned that an inspired Robin was something to be feared," Superboy started on his story.

Maybe the Robins had their clumsy times and they had their graceful times. But it was no wonder why Batman trained each of them to be at his side; no one could ever claim that a Robin was nothing short of something capable of great disaster.


End file.
